


(Of Everything I've Touched,) It's Your Flesh I Want To Go On Touching

by openmoments



Category: Football RPF, Sports RPF
Genre: La Liga, M/M, Real Madrid CF, boys loving boys is how i roll
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-26
Updated: 2012-11-26
Packaged: 2017-11-19 15:05:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/574617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/openmoments/pseuds/openmoments
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sergio is clueless and Mesut is patient.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(Of Everything I've Touched,) It's Your Flesh I Want To Go On Touching

**Author's Note:**

> There was that spread about what? a month back, with Sergio exiting a hotel with a female after he'd broken up with Lara. And naturally, I needed to spin a Serzil twist to the whole deal.

Sergio slips through the back door, scrubs his shoes against the mat because he’s polite like that and lets the door slide back against the frame. It slips out of his fingers and slides a little too fast, bounces back an inch before it’s closed and he winces because he knows Mesut’s careful with his stuff. 

He doesn’t call out as he makes his way through the kitchen, grabs a handful of grapes from the bowl as he passes the counter and frowns slightly because the house is quiet. Quiet as if no one’s home but he knows Mesut is because it’s a Wednesday and they have practice in the morning, because he’s been working on behaving after Iker pulled him aside after practice one day and Sergio had hustled by, waves of second hand embarrassment turning the tips of his own ears red. He’d waited for him out in the parking lot, fiddling with the radio so he wouldn’t have to look at Mesut as he got into the car, door slamming behind him, quiet the whole way home. 

But there’s no music playing, the TV isn’t going and Mesut isn’t wandering around while he’s talking on the phone, fingers twined around the hairs at the back of his neck. 

Sergio makes his way through the kitchen, biting a grape in half as he peers into the empty living room, the blank TV showing him walking to the bathroom where he pushes the door open with his toes and he sticks head in through the doorway of the guest room on the first floor before hesitating on the first step heading upstairs. 

Pushing the last few grapes into his mouth he takes the stairs two at a time until he slips near the top and catches himself before his knee hits the stair. Then he walks quietly upstairs, feels his phone vibrate against his thigh but ignores it when he sees the light on through the half open door to Mesut’s room. 

He never really ventures upstairs that often. He’s done it a few times if someone’s hogging the bathroom downstairs and he really can’t hold it in or the odd time Mesut’s slept in and he has to drag him out from under his sheets and help him get his ass in gear. But otherwise, they spend their time downstairs, playing video games or watching TV or eating. 

He stands on the threshold for a minute before he knocks, once, just with the edge of his knuckles before he spreads his hand out and pushes it with the pads of his fingers. Mesut turns his head a fraction from where he’s eagle spread on his bed, pillows piled up high behind his head, TV on in front of him and a magazine spread out on his stomach. 

He doesn’t know how or why but Sergio knows which magazine that is, which spread it’s opened at even though he only glances at it before his eyes dart to the TV and back to Mesut’s face. Mesut smiles, just at the corners of his mouth though his eyes stay dark and then his focus is back to the TV and Sergio suddenly wishes he had something to do with his hands. He resists putting them in his pockets or running them through his hair and instead lets them hang limply at his sides, running his thumb over the tips.  
Finally he gets sick of standing in the doorway and annoyance creeps in because Mesut hasn’t said anything, hasn’t asked him to come in, hasn’t asked him to sit down, hasn’t asked him why he’s there. So he makes his way to the bed, hesitates beside it for a fraction of a second (one he knows Mesut pretends not to notice) before he slides himself onto the other half of the bed, folds the pillow behind his head in half and resists letting his gaze slide over the glossy pages spread open across Mesut’s stomach and instead watches the crappy sitcom he’s sure Mesut’s not even paying attention to.

They watch the rest of it in silence. They don’t say anything during the breaks, don’t say anything during the credits. Sergio starts to feel something sink in his stomach, doesn’t know what it is, but doesn’t like the way it feels heavy in his belly, pushing against his spine and spreading a cold dread up his back.

He opens his mouth once, twice, licks his lips and debates about trying again. He doesn’t know what to even say, why he’s laying on Mesut’s bed in a heavy silence, wants to just laugh and sit up and chuck a pillow at his face, ask if he wants to ignore the rules and order take out because he’s really hungry and he’s sure Mesut hasn’t eaten, either. 

So his mouth starts forming the words, “Want to order take out?” when suddenly Mesut asks a question and he realizes, in some subconscious way, that he hears the words and then their meaning hits him thirty seconds later, like a kick to the throat and he can’t breathe anymore and there are half formed words pushing up against his lips but he doesn’t know what to say. He hears Mesut ask him again but he’s staring at the ceiling now and it’s like someone’s yelling at him underwater and he’s just floating. 

And then suddenly Mesut’s fingers are snapping in front of his nose and he jumps, Mesut’s fingers poking him in the cheek and he looks at him for a moment and knows that he can’t not answer it, his brain isn’t working enough to come up with an alternative, doesn’t know how Mesut picked up on it, but, maybe, is secretly glad he has. 

He takes a deep breath and looks at the ceiling for a minute before he rolls over and his eyes glide to the magazine half under Mesut’s hip, his face plastered next to someone who’s really not anyone, not like people think. She’s a ghost he keeps trying to find and he only gets halfway there before he wakes up and realizes a ghost is a ghost and they’re not real so he stops trying until he sees her in the turn of a chin or the light flashing on hair or the fluttering of eyelashes. 

This time, when Mesut asks, he hears and understands it at the same time, sound on low, but it’s all there, “Who was she?” 

 

For the first time in years, he talks about her. About being eighteen and head over heels in love with someone older, about trying so hard, about his back being pressed up against the side of a building for their first kiss and the way she’d bite his bottom lip. About laughing so hard his ribs hurt and going to sleep with her hip under his hand and wake up to light kisses as she got ready for work. And then, then about how it just ended and he still doesn’t know why (though yes he does because he was young and she wanted more and even if he wanted to, he would never have been able to give her that, and that hurts the most.). 

He tells the story to the ceiling, his words slow and measured to begin with and then as he remembers, he smiles a little and can feel Mesut shift next to him and he turns his head at the movement and stays like that, Mesut’s eyes never leave his face and so he turns to his side, traces a finger across the pages of the gossip magazine and only lets his eyes drop when he tells about her leaving and how he’s been looking for her ever since. 

It’s quiet after and he’s still staring at the page when Mesut’s hand slides across it, his hip shifts and he holds it in his hand for a moment before he closes it and tosses it to the edge of the bed. 

“Maybe you need to stop looking for her,” Mesut says and there’s a pause and Sergio doesn’t know if he’s supposed to fill it or not and Mesut answers that question for him when he continues, fingers tracing patterns on his comforter, “Maybe she’s supposed to stay a memory, Sergio. Maybe it’s time for you to accept you’re never going to find her,” and he’s never heard Mesut sound so grown up and his eyes dart up from where they’re following his fingers on the bed to where Mesut’s eyes are looking at him in a way he’s never seen before, both of them on their sides and Sergio can feel the way Mesut’s breath speeds up, feels his own heart start racing in his throat. 

It’s quiet again and he and Mesut are just looking at each other and Sergio suddenly gets the image in his head of what it would be like to wake up to Mesut there every morning, his hand on his side and hair rumpled.  
He closes his eyes and shakes his head a fraction, trying to shake the image out and when he opens them again Mesut’s turned and rolled over, remote control in his hand as he’s flipping through channels and all of a sudden Sergio feels like he’s missed out on something, missed a cue and didn’t say the lines he was supposed to and rolls back over too, because that, at least, he knows to do. 

He goes out with women who all look the same, who all could be the same, but starts realizing that maybe it is time to put the story to rest and the feeling of continually needing to search fades. The pictures in the magazines become less frequent as his outings dwindle and he starts going next door more often, lying on the couch with Mesut’s dark head leaning against the front of it, head nestled right by his hip as they exchange bowls of popcorn for bowls of chips.  
He thinks it’s funny, later, how he’d so blatantly missed something for so long. How he spent so much time searching for something that didn’t exist anymore when something that did, something real and tangible and there for him to touch if he just stretched out his arm, was in front of him and next door and beside him. 

It hits him for the first time after they come back from international break. They’ve been away for two weeks, everyone scattered to whatever four corners they originally came from and as much as he loves his national team, as much as they are part of him, it is not, and cannot be, Real Madrid to him.  
He sees the car pull up next door, the license plate that is exclusively his and he doesn’t realize and can’t stop the smile that turns the corners of his mouth up. He doesn’t Mesut give time to get inside his house before he’s making his way to the front door and grabbing the third bag that Mesut can’t juggle while trying to stuff his key into the lock.  
“You were only gone for two weeks! Did you pack your whole closet?” he asks as he comes up behind him and Mesut jerks in surprise and whirls around, the corner of one bag catching Sergio in the thigh and he winces as Mesut’s face relaxes.  
His mouth opens into a smile and Sergio’s eyes drift down as his mind stops for a minute, restarts as he shakes his head after Mesut’s turned around and opened the door and he realizes he’s missed whatever it is he was trying to say.  
“I like the new haircut,” he says as he drops his bag into the middle of the living room where Mesut’s dropped the bags he was carrying and joins him in the kitchen.  
He’s rifling through the cupboards and frowns when he comes up empty, though smiles at the compliment, “I figured it was time for a change,” is what he says and Sergio grins at him.  
“Sami wouldn’t stop teasing you, eh?”  
“And do you know how smug he is when he thinks he’s right? For two weeks I put up with that. Two weeks!” and Sergio can’t help the wave of laughter that he lets out and Mesut pulls a face at him before he chucks a box of tissues at him.  
“Oh shut up. Do you have any food at your place?” he asks as he gestures vaguely at his empty kitchen.  
“Is that even a question?” he asks as he leads the way and tries to brush away the tingling he gets when Mesut bumps their shoulders together. 

They’re winding down to go home for Christmas, everyone tired and worn out and maybe more than a little frustrated. They’ve been left with some injuries and some holes though they’ve managed to keep running and feel like maybe they’re getting there though there’s always that dark cloud of, “But maybe not,” that they keep trying to shrug off.  
Some of his teammates have commented on his lack of romantic interests on and off over the past couple of months, a punch to the elbow or a waggle of their eyebrows, Marcelo and Pepe sitting him down, faces serious one day after practice as they asked him if, “Everything was in working order, cause you know Ramos, you can get help for that,” before Cris started cackling behind him and he shoved them off the bench as he shook his head and walked away, couldn’t help the smirk that quirked one side of his mouth though something settled in the pit of his stomach, something he wanted to ignore.  
“It’s just because they’re worried about you,” he hears next to him as he’s drying his hair and he looks up from his towel and sees Mesut moving his bag from one hand to the other. “They just don’t know how to show their feelings like proper adults,” and he smirks because it’s true. Then again, it’s true for all of them because, really, it’s not like any of them have grown up, not like proper adults really should have.  
“It would weird me out if they didn’t do something like that,” Sergio admits as he stands up and grabs his jacket, shrugs into it before picking up his bag.  
“As long as they stay focused on you, I’m not complaining,” Mesut jokes as they head out, waving goodbye as they make their way to Sergio’s car and that makes Sergio’s forehead crinkle as he tries to think about what it even means but Mesut’s tapping at the window of the car, asking him to unlock it so instead he focuses on fumbling with his keys and pushes the thought away. 

He helps Mesut pack up to go home for Christmas, tells him what to take and what to leave and halfway through Mesut sits back, surveys what’s in and out of his suitcase and tells him he’s absolute crap at this and starts all over by himself. Sergio just shrugs and grabs for the remote control as Mesut flips his suitcase over, runs his hand through his hair and pulls a couple of sweaters out from under Sergio’s head.  
“Watch the hair,” Sergio says, though it lacks heat and Mesut sticks his tongue out at him before he starts refolding everything and placing them neatly into his suitcase. He smiles as he turns back towards the TV though his gaze starts wandering from it to the dark head bent over his bag, as Mesut folds and then takes out, pulls previously discarded clothes and trades their places.  
Finally Sergio just gives up on the TV and sits with a small smile on his face as he props his head up on one of his elbows and watches as Mesut scrubs a hand across the back of his neck as he makes a noise of frustration at the back of his throat and the sound sends goosebumps racing down Sergio’s spine and he straightens out before he keeps his eyes firmly on the screen for the rest of his time there, barely puts up a protest when Mesut tells him he needs to get out because he’s got an early plane and he hates flying feeling like the walking dead.  
Sergio wishes him a safe flight, asks him to let him know when he lands and then waves before rushing out of the house and realizes only after he’s safe in his own home that for the first time in just over two years, he’d shaken Mesut’s hand instead of giving him a hug. Something tells him that maybe that’s important, that he should sit down and analyze that, but he shrugs it off, grabs a bottle from the liquor cabinet, passes the glasses and heads up to his room. 

Mesut texts him when he arrives in Germany, complains that it’s cold and that he’s glad he can finally go out for dinner without every mouthful being photographed and analyzed to see if the way he holds his fork means he’s having problems at Real.  
Sergio replies that he’s probably gained so much weight they’ll have to roll him onto the pitch and that his mother still doesn’t understand that he’s supposed to be this size, even after all these years.  
Mesut sends him a message half in German, half in broken Spanish in the middle of the night halfway through break that wakes him up and he scrubs his hand across his eyes as he tries to decipher it but the only thing he really gets is, “I wish,” and, “you,” so he just replies with, “Practice safe texting,” and rolls over to go back to sleep.  
After that he doesn’t hear from him until they get back from break. He’s the one who sends the message asking if they’re going to practice together tomorrow and it’s not until he’s getting ready for bed that he gets a reply of, “Yeah sure,” and that’s nothing to reply to so he doesn’t. 

He waits in his car, rubbing his hands together with his hoodie pulled up and muttering at the heater to, “Hurry the fuck up,” as he glances between his phone and Mesut’s door because they are going to be late and that is not a good way to start the new year.  
Finally he looks up to see Mesut blundering through his door, drop his keys while he’s trying to lock his door and then almost trip over his shoelaces as he hurries over to the car.  
“Sorry,” is all he mutters as he folds himself into the passenger seat and pulls the seatbelt over both him and his bag and Sergio just looks at him for two seconds before telling him he’s an absolute mess and then backing out of the driveway.  
They both run to the change rooms and there are a few stragglers pulling up their socks and tying their boots when they get there and they throw their clothes into their lockers as they strip down and put on their training gear quickly, almost out of breath as they jog out behind everyone else.  
Sergio rolls his shoulders as Mesut sidles up to Sami who glances over at Sergio before muttering something he can’t quite make out and Mesut gives him a look he’s never seen before and he turns his gaze sharply back to Mou when he sees Mesut start to turn his head. 

He doesn’t notice it. How he starts dating girls with big eyes and big headphones stashed in their purses. With crooked, shy smiles and dark hair.  
He does notice that Sami looks at him oddly during practice and it’s not that they don’t get along, it’s just that they don’t really talk, but now they talk less and Sergio doesn’t really read into that, but the looks. Those he wonders about but can’t find the right words to ask, so he just leaves it.  
He thinks about asking Mesut about it once, but Mesut doesn’t like talking about Sami, not unless he’s the one bringing him up and Sergio knows he doesn’t like that, though he won’t allow himself to analyze why so just leaves the entire topic alone and ignores the entire situation, because if he believes it doesn’t exist then there’s no way it can. 

Everyone raves about how Mesut creates chances and magic and beauty and opportunities out of nothing. How he takes an ordinary moment on the pitch and before everyone’s eyes, turns it into magic, into something no one can quite put their finger on, something they can’t quite name and maybe don’t want to.  
It kicks Sergio in the gut the day he realizes Mesut does the same thing off the pitch, the way he suddenly makes watching a movie into something else, just by being there and Sergio can’t put his finger on it and acknowledges that he doesn’t want to and instead sits on the couch with his hands locked together in his lap as Mesut pokes his arm with his toes and throws popcorn at him and...  
...and suddenly Sergio’s twisting in his seat and pulling on Mesut’s ankles and all of a sudden he’s half in his lap and the only thing Sergio can think of doing is to blink at him, so that’s all he does, sits there with a lapful of Mesut and blinks down at him while something blows up on the screen in front of them. 

Iker’s the one who points it out to him one day after practice. Sergio looks at him suspiciously after he asks to wait for him, bounces a ball from one knee to the other before Iker pokes it while in midair and Sergio frowns at him as he starts pulling his gloves off, “Are you okay?” and his gaze drops to the pitch, just for a second, before he meets Iker’s gaze. Because Iker’s always been more than his captain. There was a time when he, they, had thought they might be more than friends. And there’s a twinge, every once in a while, when he’s tired and they’re out and he catches Iker laughing out of the corner of his eye. But Iker knows him inside out, and if he’s asking, he’s doing it because he’s trying to say, “I know you’re not fine,” and, “I’m here for you.” 

The thing is, is that Iker’s been there for it all. They’ve played together for so long that ‘football’ and ‘Real Madrid’ are synonymous with ‘Iker’. He can’t imagine one without the other. It’s the same with ‘life’ and ‘friends’. He knows the story. He would stand in the corner of bars before politely pulling him away and putting him to bed.  
And after Iker had said, “I’m sorry,” he’d answered every drunk phone call. And when there were photographs of blondes instead of brunettes leaving Sergio’s house, Iker said nothing, waited it out. 

Now he says, “You’re allowed to be happy, you know,” and Sergio gives him a look.  
“What makes you think that I’m not happy?” but they both know that, right now, he’s saying it to say it because he can’t not.  
Iker just looks at him, raises his eyebrows. He passes his gloves from one hand to the other, slaps them together.  
“He makes you happy,” and Sergio doesn’t know what to say to that, neither of them have said it out loud before, never put words to it and it sits there between them and they digest that in silence.  
“How do you know?” is what he finally asks, tentatively, not sure if he wants to know.  
“How do you not?” 

 

“What did you do this time?” and Sergio looks up from the bench in the locker room, where he’s got his shin pads caught between his hands.  
Mesut’s standing in the doorway, his bag slung over one shoulder. “What makes you think I did anything?” he asks with a grin.  
“You always do something,” and Sergio chucks one of his shin pads in his direction. Mesut moves to the side easily enough, a grin lighting up his face.  
“Almost ready?” he asks as he shifts his bag to the other shoulder.  
He nods as he reaches for his towel and runs it over his hair one more time before he grabs his shirt from his locker and slides it over his head. He tugs it into place and pushes up the sleeves as he reaches for his jacket and zips his bag closed.  
“Want to pass that?” he asks as he motions to the shin pad laying in the doorway.  
“So you can use it as a weapon again?” Mesut asks, even as he bends down to get it.  
Sergio just winks and grabs the end of it, tries pulling it from Mesut’s hand and then frowns at him when he doesn’t let go.  
They stand there like that for a moment, both their hands clinging on either side of the shin pad and Sergio can’t look away from the way Mesut’s looking at him. He realizes, suddenly, that he’s never wanted to kiss someone and not know whether he should or not.  
Mesut finally just smiles and let’s go of the shin pad and Sergio almost drops it to the floor when he does. He stuffs it in the bag and follows Mesut out of the stadium, wondering, for the first time, if he could be happier. 

He almost refuses Mesut’s invitation to watch a movie. It’s really close and he hesitates before saying yes, knowing he can say he’s tired and Mesut would be fine with it.  
But he doesn’t and he doesn’t really understand why (but maybe he does, a little), so he tells him he’ll be over in ten minutes and asks if he’s got snack food and Mesut’s rolling his eyes but he doesn’t like watching movies without snacks. Mesut says yes because he always has something and Sergio says, “Good,” before he leaves the car and heads to his place to dump his clothes in the laundry.

After he closes the machine lid and the cycle starts, he grabs a couple of beers from the fridge (because Mesut’s going through a ‘I don’t drink alcohol’ phase. Again.) and sticks them in a plastic bag before he turns off all the lights and locks the door. 

He sits on the couch, legs stretched out in front of him, cold condensation dripping off the side of the can around the tops of his fingers. He’s translating, or attempting to, what’s going on in the movie because it’s what they do. When they watch a movie, Mesut normally pokes him with his toe every time he needs something explained. They used to spend an extra hour, pausing and restarting until Sergio told him he’d just help him out during the movie, summarize it when the stupid thing was over.  
He makes stuff up as he goes along and after awhile Mesut always throws popcorn at him and tells him he knows he’s lying and Sergio just sticks his tongue out at him and reminds him that he doesn’t know for sure.  
“Xabi asked me what I thought of Sherlock,” Mesut tells him as he digs around in the popcorn bowl. Sergio raises an eyebrow and makes a noncommittal noise.  
“He knew it wasn’t something that I’d normally watch, so he wanted to know what I liked about it,” he continues and Sergio keeps his eyes on the TV in front of him.  
“So when he asked me what I thought of it, he found it really interesting when I told him that I really liked the plot twist of John and Moriarty working together,” and Sergio can’t help the laugh that bursts out of his chest, beer spilling onto his shirt as it sloshes over the mouth of the can.  
“You’re an asshole,” Mesut tells him as he grabs a pillow and chucks it in his direction.  
“It was boring!” Sergio tells him, as he keeps laughing, a hand patting at the damp spot on his shirt.  
“You knew I was watching it to be nice!” Mesut tells him with a bit of a pout.  
“I know. But my ending made it way better than it was,” Sergio tells him, looking over to the other side of the couch.  
“I was so embarrassed,” Mesut tells him, eyes staring into the bottom of the popcorn bowl and Sergio feels a rush of guilt roll over him and he turns himself sideways on the couch.  
“Hey, it’s not a big deal, Mesut,” he tells him, “I’m sure you told Xabi it was my fault and he said, “Ahhh,” and that that made sense,” and Mesut looks up sharply as Sergio grins at him.  
“Don’t think I don’t know you, Mesut Özil,” he says, “You probably made him feel all sorry for you and then he explained what the show was about, didn’t he?” Mesut says nothing as he puts a piece of popcorn in his mouth.  
“And that explains why I got a ball in the back of the head during practice. Xabi hates it when people mess with his ‘culture help’,” he mutters, making quotation marks with his fingers.  
“At least he would be nice and actually tell me what was going on.”  
“That would be boring. Trust me: you watch a movie with Xabi and you’ll be knocking on my door telling me it was a horrible time,” he states matter of factly as he reaches across the couch and grabs a handful of popcorn from the bowl in Mesut’s lap.  
“Besides,” he continues, “You know you like that I change things,” he says with a smile and frowns when Mesut just nods.  
“Mesut,” he starts and watches as Mesut abruptly stands up, spilling popcorn over the edge of the bowl and onto the couch.  
“I’m just really tired,” he says, running a hand through his hair before he slides it down his face and crosses his arms.  
“Mesut,” Sergio says again, softer this time, places the beer on a coaster on the side table and stands up.  
“I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?” Mesut says and Sergio barely hears him, just stands there, rocks up on his toes.  
“Mesut,” he starts again and his name just hangs there for a minute before Mesut turns around and Sergio knows that’s not a real smile.  
“I’m really sorry,” he says, over polite and Sergio resists rolling his eyes, “But I guess practice really took it out of me today,” and Sergio just nods and he remembers back to when they were laying on Mesut’s bed and he told him about her and how there was a moment and he didn’t know what to do with it. He’s pretty sure the same thing is happening here but he’s not entirely sure and so he just stands there while Mesut looks at him.  
So he does the only thing he can think of and walks towards Mesut who gives him a funny look before they’re standing toe-to-toe and Sergio watches as he raises his eyebrows at him, almost like a challenge.  
Sergio likes that. Likes that he’s giving him something. Because Sergio doesn’t know what to do with moments, but he does know what to do with challenges: he knows to meet them. So he does.  
He leans in, places a hand against Mesut’s jaw and presses their mouths together, soft, lingering, chaste. He pulls away and sees Mesut’s eyes flutter before his tongue darts out to lick his lips before he asks, voice a little shaky, “What was that?”  
Sergio feels a wave of panic start growing, starts thinking he read into everything completely wrong and that he’s now completely fucked up and how do you explain that to someone?  
But then he looks at Mesut, sees the way the corner of his mouth has lifted a little bit before his eyes gaze darts up to his, knows that they’re smiling and all of a sudden he knows. He knows how to answer.  
He moves in closer, body completely in Mesut’s space now and feels a thrill run down his spine when he doesn’t move away.  
“That was me saying good night,” he replies and Mesut frowns at him and his smile slips a little.  
“What?” he asks, panic settling back in.  
“That was a really crappy good night,” he says and Sergio closes his eyes for a moment because he’s sure he’s lost five years of his life in the last two minutes and when he opens them, Mesut’s grinning up at him, all devilish and tempting and Sergio responds in the only way he knows he should: by leaning in and pressing himself up against Mesut, a hand resting against his hip.  
Mesut responds with both his hands sliding around his neck and pushing up against him, his mouth responding slowly, tentatively. Because, Sergio realizes, he’s wanted this for awhile and now he doesn’t know if he’s going to wake up and learn it’s only a dream.  
Sergio pulls back with a soft nip at his bottom lip and he realizes his heart is pounding in his chest and his senses are all set to high and that that’s the kiss that’s felt the most right in so long.  
“I should go,” he finally says and Mesut nods and tells him he probably should but they keep standing like that until they both start laughing at themselves and Sergio ignores the door to keep kissing Mesut. 

(He does, eventually, go home, but only after he and Mesut stopped every three steps to keep kissing, to keep practicing and trying it out and trying to realize, “Yes, this is real.”)

 

Eight months later...

He’s been waiting for this day since month seven passed by. It’s the first time in a long time that he’s been in anything resembling a relationship for longer than seven months. And, maybe it’s a really little thing, but he’s excited about it and has a countdown set up on his phone, Mesut wondering what the hell is so important on his phone that he has to keep checking it. 

They took it slow. The slowest Sergio has probably taken anything and on one hand he understands. Mesut sat him down, eyes all serious and asked him questions like, “Have you ever done anything with another guy before?” and “What are you looking for?” and “How long are you in this for?” Questions that Sergio had never thought about before and the awkward joking he’d been doing faded as he looked and Mesut, knee bouncing up and down and knew, really knew, that this meant a lot to Mesut. And when he realized that, when that kicked in, he realized that, if it meant a lot to Mesut, it meant even more to him. 

So they moved slowly. And there were some times when Sergio was thankful for that. Like the first time they completely ignored the movie they were watching to make out on the couch and Sergio was on Mesut’s lap and all of a sudden felt an erection against him that wasn’t his own and froze because he didn’t know what he was supposed to do, if he was supposed to do anything at all, if Mesut expected anything from him.  
(Mesut had smiled at him and pressed a kiss to his temple and said they’d get there when he was comfortable and that was fine and he understood and Sergio pressed his forehead against his shoulder because hearing that and knowing Mesut could read him that well made it difficult for him to breath properly.)  
But there were other times, after they had gotten past the, “What to do with two erections in a make out session,” and Sergio had realized how good it felt to have Mesut’s fingers up his ass, especially when he moved them just right, that he hated how Mesut wanted to take it slowly. Because he just knew that having his cock up there would feel really fucking good too and he begged Mesut to just please but got hushed through it and reminded that, “Going slow is a good thing,” and just frowned because not only was he pretty fucking sure that Mesut’s dick would feel good, but he was also sure that being inside Mesut was something he really wanted.  
(He kind of maybe possibly probably thanked Mesut, later, because as much as it was amazing, really amazing, he knew that, as usual in this whole relationship thing, Mesut was right and that maybe waiting was something he should have tried sooner in life.) 

But he has this all planned. Because they waited and they made it and he made it and he wants Mesut to be proud of him, to look at him in that dopey way that he gets when he looks at Sergio now. It happens just because, but Sergio has also found that it happens when he lets him pick dinner or which movie they’ll watch. Or when Sergio brings home flowers (he was really nervous the first time he ever did that) or if he brings home food from that German place that Mesut always orders from whenever he’s homesick. 

So he orders take out and buys flowers and turns the lights down low and finds candles in the back of a cupboard and stands back and smiles at it and can’t wait to see the look on Mesut’s face when he walks in. 

He jumps up when he hears the door open and Mesut takes one look at his wide eyes and huge smile and asks him if he’s on drugs and Sergio’s too happy to do anything more than shake his head before he kisses him with something that’s more than a ‘welcome home’ kiss but less than a ‘bedroom. now.’ kiss and when they break apart Mesut’s wearing a matching look on his face.  
“What’s going on?” he asks and Sergio bites his lip for a moment before he replies with, “We made it to eight months,” and he’s worried Mesut doesn’t get it as his brow furrows. It takes a minute and Sergio’s getting increasingly nervous before understanding makes its way across Mesut’s face and he smiles and leans in to kiss him again, long and slow and perfect.  
“Are you done looking then?” Mesut asks and maybe it’s a loaded question because who ever really knows? But Sergio does. He knows.  
“I’m done looking,” he confirms and the smile Mesut gives him is enough to confirm that he really is.


End file.
